Posture correcting garments and bras are known and have been used for several years; primarily with a goal of stimulating body muscles into better alignment and posture resulting in a slight S-shape of the spine—the orthopedic gold standard for perfect spinal alignment. The importance of having good posture is a well-known and a long-accepted priority among healthcare professionals and even non-experts in the field. Good posture is vital for overall health (prevention of back, shoulder, neck pain, etc.) and vital for athletic performance; as poor posture or form during dynamic athletic activities results in inefficient biomechanics and body movement. Poor posture is typically observationally categorized by ‘shoulders rolled forward’, ‘a forward curvature in the thoracic spine’, and/or a ‘left or right lean of the thoracic spine. In addition, inefficient body movement caused by poor posture prevents full utilization of skeleto-muscular range of motion and strength which commonly causes repetitive injury. Typical treatment methods for those suffering from back, neck, and other pain include chiropractors, physical therapy, or orthopedic surgeon evaluation and possible treatment. Such medical procedures to correct poor posture involve injections, medications, rehabilitation, and typically as a last resort—surgical correction. As many cannot afford the cost or time of extensive and costly chiropractor or physical therapy treatment, there exists a need for alternative and affordable apparel therapy methods and systems, with the therapeutic posture correcting and chest expanding bra being a first and appropriate choice, to:                a) Improve spinal and shoulder proprioception,        b) Improve spinal and shoulder kinematics,        c) Provide comfort, function, and pain relief,        d) Increase compliance for daily wear,        e) Improve thoracic mobility, and        f) Improve chest expansion to allow for better breathing.        
The first attempts at using a wearable garment to refine biomechanical factors that influence posture and kinesthetic states was originated in the 1970's within the Soviet space program, in order to counteract the effects of long-term weightlessness. This device, known as the Adeli suit, is used to treat pediatric patients with postural disabilities due to neurological conditions that lead to brain damage or spinal cord injury. Its design is relatively simple, involving elastic connections between the primary joints, specifically to target positions of antagonistic muscle pairs. However, there are still many other of ways and degrees to which the body can become imbalanced due to disruptions in the kinetic chain of muscle activation.
Muscles devoted substantially to the concepts of balance and posture are sometimes referred to as gravity and antigravity muscles; they are the tools that provide upright organisms with the ability to maintain the center-of-gravity (COG) within a stable base of support. Upright balance is attained when a vertical line follows from the center-of-gravity, directly down through this base of support. Any imbalance will cause compensatory abnormalities which will affect alignment within the body's whole musculoskeletal system. Optimized postural alignment is crucial in counteracting the constant downward gravitational forces opposing the body. When the upright force of musculoskeletal architecture and the downward force of gravity are balanced, muscles are able to function with the least amount of work, i.e. peak efficiency.
When the upright body holds better posture, smaller amounts of stress and strain are placed on the muscles, ligaments and bones thereby enhancing their efficiency and increasing bone density and muscle mass in the long term. Opposing the force of gravity, the so-called anti-gravity muscles assist to maintain an upright, balanced posture. For the upper body and the muscles of the back, these muscles include the trapezius, the rhomboids, and several smaller groups around the shoulder such as the teres minor and subscapularis. Additionally, the cervical-occipital muscle groups maintain the head in an erect position, thereby preventing it from rolling forward. These muscle groups simultaneously play an important role in the proprioception process, with proprioceptors in the dermal surface sending key information about pressure in the feet to the antigravity muscles through the nervous system. Any weakening of these muscles combined with the continuously working gravitational forces leads to poor postural stability, which affects muscle function. Postural alignment is essential to maintain normal length-tension relationships of the muscles especially during dynamic posture, determining the ease with which the body segments align themselves throughout movement. Any disruptions to this alignment throw the kinetic chain of the body off balance, making the person susceptible to a host of injuries. Understanding our limitations in controlling the effect gravitational forces have on the muscles and structure should form the basis of treatment programs.
As one treatment option, compression-based shirts and tight-fitting girdles were created to fill the burgeoning need of postural correction. In addition, several posture and sports bras were also created to assist the breasts and provide wearers with a comfortable way to support and enhance posture. These bras take a variety of approaches to posture correction, as some focused on simultaneously supporting and visually enhancing the breasts using breast cups and elastomeric material and straps. The specific bra in discussion, (Mazourik) US20160015090A1, claims functional support but, in reality, is just a “push-up” bra with thinly valid orthopedic functionality. Other bras currently on the market are very much like posture shirts and girdles, and they typically contain vertical straps that do not mimic natural anatomical movement. One bra in particular, (Fenske) US20090126084, uses shoulder cap straps to grab the skin at the area of the pectoral muscles. While this may provide some form of posture correction, it does not do so in an anatomically correct method, and despite claims of comfort, cannot be that comfortable, as multiple straps unnaturally pulling on your shoulders does not make for easy and daily wear. More specifically, vertical straps take the wrong approach to correcting a wearer's posture—namely, the straps do not focus on proprioceptive correction to achieve biomechanically correct postural alignment but instead focus on force. This force creates an unnatural alignment that may push a wearer's shoulders backwards in an outward appearance of better posture but in reality, doesn't achieve much short term or long-term success. Natural posture alignment in the thoracic and lumbar spine is achieved when posterior muscle groups (i.e. trapezius, rhomboids, latissimus dorsi, and erector spinae) and anterior muscle groups (serratus anterior, etc.) are both exerting the same amount of force, thus allowing the body to be balanced. Therefore, garments created in this space should target natural (proprioceptive) muscle re-balancing; however, current and previous garments or devices were not able to fully achieve this goal due to several limitations, including the one listed above.
Further to this idea, the vertical straps that most posture garments utilize end at the bottom of the buttocks, contributing to the unnatural pull that forces the shoulders back into an improper and unnatural position that does not mimic natural anatomical movement. The corresponding picture would be someone grabbing the bottom of one's shirt from the back and pulling it downwards and tucking it underneath one's glutes; this would certainly force one's shoulders back and straighten one's posture, but it would also align the posture in a constrained or compressive formation and prove to be uncomfortable, with poor compliance, and a challenge to wear at work or in occupation. For instance, one shirt of this kind was made from a cotton body with elastic straps that were attached at the front of each shoulder, ran over the back parallel to the spine, and connected at the bottom seam. That same shirt was not only anatomically incorrect, it was also extremely tight (made from a Lycra Spandex material), thus not breathable and uncomfortable.
Other bras, such as Dicker (U.S. Pat. No. 5,823,851), use both an over-shoulder harness that is interconnected by a cross brace and contains a support belt that encircles the wearer's torso. One can imagine how complex this would be just to put on, not to mention how burdensome it would be to carry around on your body all day. Compliance is already out the window. Back and breast support posture bras cannot be achieved through compromising form, ease of wear, proper anatomical methods, and fashion, among other things, otherwise—people just won't wear them.
Known methods and systems include US20090062704 and US20110213283 directed to a shirt type garment made from a cotton body with elastic straps attached at the front of each shoulder and running over the back parallel to the spine and connected at a seam toward the bottom of the shirt. These shirts are made from a Lycra® Spandex® material with mesh and a woven stretch fabric. Similar systems utilize a Lycra® Spandex® combination material to provide structural stability, compression, and an athletic garment look. However, such material is not breathable. In order to effectively gain stability from and in the body for proprioception, and to correct posture imbalance; Lycra® Spandex® garments must be worn extremely tight to the body leading to discomfort.
Other known methods and systems include US20160015090 (Mazourik mentioned above), US20090126084 (Fenske), and U.S. Pat. No. 5,823,851 (Dicker). The description and limitations of each has already been discussed at length above.
The present invention differs from previous and current posture garments or devices in that it utilizes natural dynamic (muscular) and static (scapular kinetics) combined proprioception to alter spinal biomechanics and scapular kinematics for posture restoration, upright stance restoration, and improved thoracic mobility. An organism naturally uses proprioception to maintain an internal model of its body's orientation in space, a sort of mental avatar representing the mind's best guess as to how its physical limbs are moving. When the primary motor cortex signals the muscles to fire, it also emits an efference signal, also known as a corollary discharge. This second signal has been hypothesized to suppress the subsequent firing of sensory cortex networks when they are inevitably stimulated by the aforementioned motor movement. Therapeutically applied proprioception can be explained by intensifying and subsequently normalizing the afferent proprioceptive mobility-controlling input.
Rather than utilizing vertical straps, one form of the proprioceptive induction technique is the utilization of the posterior scapular straps/elastic tension band construct that re-aligns the scapulae from a protracted (forward) position to a retracted (horizontal) position. A horizontal motion that moves the scapula towards the spine induces spinal extension and re-aligns the head on top of the spine. This natural movement induces erector spinal muscle activation (arching the spine), relaxation of the trapezius muscle, and posterior moving of the head to better align with the spine. This method of postural correction is natural and sustainable because it alters both spinal and scapular biomechanics to recover a wearer's posture and then passively influences the posture after it is corrected. This is achieved due to the natural tension that the scapular straps exert on the wearer's scapulae, which retrains spinal and scapular muscles to ensure the wearer is in an upright posture and correct postural form without the force of a vertical strap constantly pulling over the shoulder and down to the buttock's region.
Additional systems include U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,202,327, 4,957,103, 5,158,531, 5,451,200, 5,599,286, 5,718,670, 6,102,879, 6,213,922, 6,440,094, 6,676,617, 6,936,021, 7,134,969, 7,153,246, 7,395,557, 7,662,121, 7,871,388, 8,047,893, 8,083,693, 8,308,670, 8,516,614, 8,556,840, 8,795,213, 8,795,215, 8,887,315, 8,905,956, 8,910,317, 8,932,236, 9,009,863, 9,167,854, 9,168,167, 9,226,534, 9,439,459, 9,445,932, 9,456,919, 9,504,280, 9,883,703, 9,931,236, US20040107479, US20050197607, US20060000478A1, US20080134409A1, US20090062704, US20100192274A1, US20120078149, US20120174282, US20130047313, US20130053744, US20130090521, US20130103079, US20140058307, US20140100501, US20140221893 and US20150040286A1.
However, none of the prior art references provide a proprioceptive bra that efficiently and effectively corrects a wearer's posture. None of the prior art references provide data for a narrowing of the distance between the shoulder blades in a resting position or a narrowing of the distance between the scapula to the spinous process while using a bra. There exists a need for a proprioceptive woven fabric posture bra that corrects a wearer's posture and improves chest expansion and thoracic mobility, by narrowing the distance between right and left scapula using proprioceptive muscle retraction, using anatomically correct movement that allows for shoulder mobility, is breathable and aesthetically pleasing to promote patient compliance, and is not so tight as to be hot and uncomfortable to wear.
Accordingly, the present invention is directed to solving all of these problems.